Semiconductor lasers are well understood in the art and are available commercially. Some such devices are characterized by high power outputs particularly when a plurality of the devices are produced in a linear array.
Even higher power outputs are achieved when linear arrays of lasers are stacked, one on top of another, to form an area (or two-dimensional) array. But because of the difficulty in extracting the heat generated by each individual linear array, there is a limit to the output power realized from a given linear array stack. Specifically, the maximum power that can be realized from a linear array stack is well below the sum of the outputs from the individual linear arrays. Furthermore, the yield of two-dimensional arrays is very low because of delicate and cumbersome assembly procedures.
Yet a two-dimensional array of high power lasers clearly would find enthusiastic commercial use in solid state, laser pumping, medical application and in industrial welding and cutting applications as well as many others. But such a prise has eluded optoelectronic manufacturers although hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in attempts to produce such high power, two-dimensional, laser arrays.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,834 issued Jun. 23, 1987 discloses electronic scanners and printers employing a bundle of optical fibers in which the fiber ends at one face of the bundle are arranged in a linear array and the ends at the opposite face of the bundle are arranged in a two-dimensional (area) array. For scanner applications, an area array of light sensors is affixed (optically) to the area face, and the consecutive positions of a beam of light moved incrementally along the linear face of the bundle are associated with consecutive addresses of the sensors illuminated for each such position. In this manner, the exit positions in the area face are organized to correspond to the consecutive positions in the linear face and even a noncoherent fiber optic bundle can be made "coherent" electronically.
For printer applications, an array of light sources is juxtaposed with the area face of the fiber optic bundle and the relationships between the pixels at the linear face and the light sources at the area face of the bundle is similarly determined.
Further, multicore, optical fibers included within each fiber array of optical fibers, are also well known in the art and available commercially.